386 ALBERT S. MORACZEWSKI 



By starting with a subjective foundation for his philosophy, 

 Rene Descartes was never able, nor was anyone else able, to 

 leave the subjective domain. The objective world of sense 

 was forever beyond the reach of mind, and mind beyond the 

 reach of sense. His conception of the human soul as something 

 so distinct and separate from the living body as to be indepen- 

 dent leaves the body and soul two complete entities. It is no 

 wonder that physiology and mechanistic psychology soon found 

 no place for the ghostly, angelic Cartesian ' soul.' 



A certain parallelism between mental thoughts and physical 

 mechanics was taught by Descartes, and a limited influence 

 of the mind on body was allowed through the pineal gland. 

 Leibniz, however, could see no reason for this limited influence 

 of mind on matter, since the two entities were completely 

 diverse in nature. Consequently the only parallelism open to 

 Leibniz was a harmony between these two, pre-established by 

 God. This parallelism was put into a scientific context by the 

 psychologists Fechner and Wundt. 



Among modern neurophysiologists, J. C. Eccles, a professed 

 Cartesian, has given much thought to the mind-brain problem.^ 

 Eccles, following the lead of other investigators,* develops the 

 notion that brain and mind liaison takes place primarily in the 

 cerebral cortex. According to him this liaison is possible only 

 when there is a high level of activity in cerebral tissue. To 

 avoid possible misunderstanding Eccles distinguishes the action 

 of the mind, or will on the brain from the reverse action of 

 the brain on the mind (perception) . He conceives the mind 

 as acting on the brain by virtue of the latter's " critically poised 

 neurones " which act as hypersensitive detectors of " minute 

 spatio-temporal fields of influence " emanating from the will. 

 The brain-to-mind action is explained by assuming that the 

 spatio-temporal patterned activity of the cerebral cortex can 



^ J. C. Eccles, The Neurcyphysiological Basis of Mind (Oxford: Clarendon, 1953) , 

 pp. 261-86. 



* E. D. Adrian, The Physical Background of Perception (Oxford: Clarendon, 

 1947); C. S. Sherrington, op. cit. 



